


Fortybag

by sierra_roe



Category: You (TV 2018)
Genre: Addiction, Backstory, Crushes, Fantasizing, Forty POV, Lust, M/M, Past Drug Use, Unrequited Love, dirty thoughts about your sister's bf, forty calls joe a himbo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-11
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-19 08:07:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22207828
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sierra_roe/pseuds/sierra_roe
Summary: What would an episode of You look like from Forty's perspective? Turns out, it looks a lot like an episode of Fleabag.Featuring: Forty's dirty thoughts about Joe, unrequited longing, addiction backstory, and and how Forty talked Love into letting Joe stay at Anavrin. (No knowledge of Fleabag necessary for this fic.)
Relationships: Forty Quinn & Love Quinn, Joe Goldberg/Forty Quinn
Comments: 10
Kudos: 131





	Fortybag

Forty stares at Joe from across Anavrin.

Joe is shelving books. He turns and the light from the large stained glass window catches his cheekbones and jawline, and his fluffy black hair.

_There he is, there's our resident bookseller. My god, I'd give my left nut to have his lips wrapped around my cock right now. Picture that, Joe on his knees, right now, in front of the bisexual pescatarian authors display. Did I say bookseller? I meant bookslutter._

A brief flash of memory of the porn he'd been watching last night, with the closest performer he could find who looked like Joe. Forty, lying in bed, casually wondering if fucking Joe in the ass would be the same as fucking a girl in the ass.

_I can't decide if I want to fuck him or if I want him to fuck me. Do you think a real dick up your ass is any different than a strap-on?_

_I mean, it's not JUST the sex I want. It's the validation, the approval, the things he says about my work, that's what's got me all emotionally boned up over here. It's hella gay, and I'm here for it. I'll take every nugget of attention he gives me. Validate me, daddy._

Forty’s morning pages have been exclusively about Joe recently. He figures he might as well lean in to the feeling, get it all out on the page. You’ve gotta feel your feelings, or at least that’s what one of his therapists told him. The morning pages are a writing exercise – three handwritten stream of consciousness pages, every morning – that’s supposed to unblock his creativity. It hasn’t worked yet, but he knows people who swear by it, so... 

_In the program, they always say you just have to keep doing the steps. It doesn't work unless you work it. But it's a fucking shame I'm not working over that cock right now._

Forty's problem has always been that his feelings are just too big, all the time. The drugs helped with that, when he was doing them. Downers to dull out the feelings, uppers to distract him from the feeling. On some level he was always trying to avoid thinking about The Bad Thing that happened when he was young, but as he got older, there were so many other, lesser bad things, to avoid thinking about that he was full up with them.

Despite the fact that Forty had gone to school at Dartmouth in New Hampshire, he had managed to keep heroin out of his drug rotation. Well, for the most part. Okay, just once or twice. Heroin was for the poors anyway, so he’d only done it a couple times when he’d run out of oxy and cash. The problem with oxy and heroin was that they were too good, like being wrapped up in a hug from Love. Which was clearly an issue when you were lonely and all the way across the country from your twin sister in culinary school, and living in a place where heroin was cheap and readily available even if you had to build a barrier of middlemen between yourself and the redneck townies who sold it. Sometimes Forty wondered if he'd have less of a drug problem if Love had been around to protect him during college. But that's just another bad thought he has to push away. 

_Do you think he has any idea how hard I'm crushing on him? My old sport doesn't pick up on as much as he thinks he does. I mean, I've been ironically referencing Jay Gatsby since I met him and never once has that himbo gotten the joke._

_Alright. Time to do this._

He crosses the floor of Anavrin to the book corner.

"How's it hanging, broseph?" Forty’s taken to calling Joe by whichever bro nickname pops into his head. He wants to make it a habit so the other nicknames don’t accidentally pop out. 

_Babe. Beautiful. My light._

Forty had always known he was attracted to guys, but this, this full on infatuation, this was new. He mostly dated straight. He liked to think of his sexuality as 90% Tinder and 10% Grindr. He always figured he’d end up with a woman, but Joe was making him rethink his own presumed levels of hereroflexibility. 

There were a lot of things Forty hated about being Forty Quinn, but being around Joe drowned that noise out for a while, kind of the way drugs did. For fuck's sake, he practically felt high when he was around Joe. Joe's presence in the room went to his head and made it buzz pleasantly, like a bottle or two of Dom Perignon interspersed with a couple lines of coke in the bathroom at Patina. It made him feel both stupid and energized at once, like he’d never have to sleep again. 

_I think he's my new addiction. Fuck it, maybe this is how I get clean for good this time. He can be my crack, baby._

Truly, the one thing keeping him from trying anything with Joe was his sister. Even though the two were broken up at the moment, he would never invade his sister's territory like that. The thing was, last night Love had tried to cut Joe out of both their lives completely. And that was a step too far. Joe and Love were a good match. Maybe she thought she didn't want Joe around right now, but she'd change her mind. After all, it was Joe. And if Forty saw good things in him, he knew Love did too. They didn't share a womb for 9 months just to feel differently about people. If the two got back together, their relationship would keep Joe around. If Forty couldn't have him physically, well, the attention and validation of his work was almost as good. Forty wanted to eat it like a big bowl of ice cream, savoring every bite.

Joe is grim, reserved. After all, he'd just been catastrophically dumped. "I'm ready to turn in my badge and apron. I have to quit."

Forty was prepared for this.

"Actually, you don't. I talked with my sister, and you can stay. I went to bat for you."

And he had, too. He'd gone to bat as hard as he could. Last night with Love, he'd pulled out all the emotional stops for Joe.

***

"Forty, he's not who he says he is. His name's not even Will, it's Joe! I don't know who this guy is. I can't be around someone I don't even trust! I can't have him here in the store anymore!" 

"Love, I know. Believe me, I get it! He's a lying sack of shit." Forty held Love as she cried. The twins had always comforted each other, even if it was usually the other way around. "But hear me out. What if we... let him keep working here?"

Love looked up at him with pain in her eyes. "Forty, no. The guy has to go."

"Lovey, please. Just listen to me. Will – I mean Joe – has been the best thing that's happened to my writing in years. I've got another movie in me, I can feel it. No one - and I mean no one - has been as good at giving me feedback as he is. He's not like the rest of L.A. movie people. He's legit."

"I don't like it, Forty. You know I don't like it."

"You know I don't have many friends still in my life after everything that's happened with... well, you know."

_My addiction._

"I can't go back to that crowd again. If I have Joe around, I don't need to. We hang out, he helps me write. And he never does drugs. He's so good for me, Love. Tell me you've seen how good he is for me."

Love looked at him with concern and compassion. "Alright. He can stay. For now anyway. Just make sure he doesn't bother me."

Forty pressed his hands together in prayer position with sincere gratitude. "Thank you, thank you! I promise you won't regret it, Lovey!"

And in the end, it hadn't even been that hard to keep Joe around. Well, fighting with Love was hard, but being honest with her was the easiest thing in the world.

***

"Just like, stay out of her airspace for a while. Okay?"

"You want me to stay? Why?"

"Because it's nice having you around. You're real. You're more authentic than half the fuckers I know."

_I'm just as honest with him as I am with Love. Even if it's only a little nugget of the truth. A lil truth nug._

And there he had it. Success. Joe was staying. There were a few good things about being Forty Quinn and one of them was that he usually got what he wanted, in the end, through charm, or money, or the type of charm that comes from having money. But sometimes it was just through knowing the right way to be honest.

He winks at Joe. "I've gotta bounce, bro. I'll see you soon, okay?" Forty walks away, head buzzing a little. Joe was staying. Joe would still be there, for him to see at work every day, and every day they worked on the screenplay too, and in the future, once he and Love got back together, maybe he'd be a permanent part of their lives. It wasn't so bad, loving someone from a distance.

**Author's Note:**

> The morning pages that Forty (canonically) references are a concept from a book called The Artist's Way which is actually fully responsible for you reading this fic at all. After doing morning pages in a lazy and halfassed way for a few months, I can say that it actually did successfully unblock my creativity and allow me to start writing again. So, count me as one of those people who swear by it.


End file.
